Wallace
- Pronunciation
- [Wa-llace]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Stranger
- Origin
- Anglo
About the Name Wallace
Wallace is an Anglo-Scottish surname-turned-given-name meaning "stranger" or "foreigner" — derived from the Old French and Anglo-Norman waleis, the term used by Germanic and Norman speakers to refer to Celtic or Latin-speaking peoples they encountered as outsiders. The same root gave rise to the names Wales and Wallis, all sharing the sense of being "of the Celtic-speaking peoples." In Scottish use the name became famous through the medieval national hero William Wallace, ensuring it a permanent place in Scottish cultural identity and making it a name with patriotic resonance for families of Scottish heritage.
Two notable bearers are on record. Wallace Stegner, born on February 18, 1909 in Lake Mills, Iowa, the second son of George Stegner and Hilda Paulson, grew up moving through North Dakota, Washington, and other western states — the restless early life of a writer who became one of the major voices of American Western literature. Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) was an American Modernist poet whose work fused philosophical inquiry with sensuous imagery, earning recognition as one of the most original poetic voices of the twentieth century.
Wallace entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1920 and peaked in 1923 at its best rank of #69. It has maintained a long, remarkably durable presence, appearing in 2024 at #981 with 229 births — over a century of tracked history. Total top-1000 births reached 18,824. Recorded variants include Wallie, Wallis, and Wally, shorter and more informal forms of the name.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Wallace
US Popularity History (1920–2025)
Annual US births named Wallace by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1923 with 2,803 boys named Wallace (boy rank #69 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #964 for boys (241 US births). That's 895 places below its 1923 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Wallace Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Wallace the strongest states are Utah, Minnesota, Oregon.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Utah | #547 | 67 |
| 2 | Minnesota | #573 | 90 |
| 3 | Oregon | #595 | 25 |
| 4 | Washington | #604 | 104 |
| 5 | Wisconsin | #633 | 65 |
| 6 | Alabama | #654 | 54 |
| 7 | Colorado | #656 | 48 |
| 8 | Massachusetts | #683 | 20 |
| 9 | Tennessee | #722 | 75 |
| 10 | Missouri | #768 | 45 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | #1,051 | 34 |
| 2 | Ohio | #878 | 49 |
| 3 | Virginia | #864 | 53 |
| 4 | North Carolina | #833 | 60 |
| 5 | Louisiana | #810 | 18 |
| 6 | Michigan | #769 | 78 |
| 7 | Missouri | #768 | 45 |
| 8 | Tennessee | #722 | 75 |
| 9 | Massachusetts | #683 | 20 |
| 10 | Colorado | #656 | 48 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Wallace in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Wallace
2 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Wallace.
- Wallace Stegner acclaimed American novelist and short story writer.
- Wallace Stevens was one of the most significant American poets.
Looking for names like Wallace?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Wallace to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Wallace against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).